


Smell of independence

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Legacy of Responsibility [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Irondad, Patronisation, Pepper and Peter's friendship, Peter is Iron Man's heir, Rescue, spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 08:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Colonel Rhodes took it upon himself to somehow fill in Mr Stark's position as a mentor for Peter.It wasn't going very well.Not. At. All.





	Smell of independence

Colonel Rhodes took it upon himself to somehow fill in Mr Stark's position as a mentor for Peter.

It wasn't going very well.

Not. At. All.

He had been the first guest to arrive on their first morning in the lakeside house, his leg braces whining slightly as he walked up from his car.

"The kid in?" Peter heard through the window of the workshop, as he tried to match the description from a design notebook to an object on the shelf, left there mid-work by Mr Stark, probably days - maybe hours - before he had worked out how to properly use that time-travel-dimension-skipping-thing.

"There’s always a piece of unfinished work left," he said softly, trying to recall from where the quote might have come. "But then, I suppose, I will be the one to finish these particular pieces."

"Don't call him that," Pepper's voice travelled the distance between the main house and the shed. "He does have a name, you know."

"Tony always called him 'kid'. I'd have to focus to remember, what was it, Patrick...?"

"Peter," she corrected. "And you'd better remember this, because he is definitely not going away, no matter what various people had suggested recently."

The man sighed so heavily Peter grimaced.

_Here it comes, the 'adult male wisdom'._

He caught himself identifying things that he had heard Aunt May complain about _forever_. From being patronised, to being constantly corrected to having things explained to him by people who knew _less_ about it than he did.

Because he was a kid.

Because being a kid put him in the same category as women. He would one day grow out of that category and _become_ an adult male, which was apparently the only way one could _stop_ being patronised, corrected and told stuff.

MJ, however, had no such option. And neither had Pepper or Aunt May - they were already quite grown up and that didn't deter people from talking to them 'slowly and kindly', which was usually prefaced with a suffering sigh or other adequate sounds.

If that was a part of being an adult, he wanted nothing to do with it.

MJ hated being patronised.

He wondered whether there was some kind of general amnesia thing that men suffered from when they graduated or if it was more of a kind of a society-wide hazing - with the oppressed ones getting promoted to the ruling group and finally getting their turn.

"Pepper—" uh-oh, the suggestive pause of wisdom. "What the hell are you doing with that kid? He is just some troublemaker from Queens, why would you even—"

"Tony wanted it," she said simply and Peter felt a wave of warmth wash over him.

"Tony wanted a lot of things, not all of them sensible. If you keep this up, who will the kid grow up to be? What is his future? What are his prospects? He will get used to the quality and then...?"

"Then, I suppose, if I do everything correctly, my husband's apprentice will become my chief designer.  I can't lose him, Rhodey. I'm not going to suddenly... just discard him. If for no other reason than that Tony liked him and wanted him around. And with him being the only person bright enough to pick up Tony's unfinished work..."

He blinked.

_Oh._

"Tony had put it in the will," Pepper continued. "And you know what? I like the boy. I wish we had had more time for him to work with Tony. I see his work - I'm not a designer, Rhodey. I'm a businesswoman. But I recognise good engineering ideas when I see them. Tony would have benefited from having Peter around for these five years."

Another Tortured Male Sigh.

"Aren't you projecting, just a tiny bit?"

_Oh, geez, even I know that sounded like the worst..._

"Look here," she clicked something metallic. "These are the controls for the Rescue unit. Look at them and tell me I'm projecting, or I'm delusional or that Tony didn't really want what I'm saying right now."

"Mommy mode," the Colonel sounded puzzled.

"Override for Morgan's capsule. Beacon, homing in and full overrides to steer it in case of danger. And a beacon tracker for Morgan herself."

"So what? This seems perfectly reasonable...?"

Click, click.

"Mother mode...?"

"Beacon, patching in to external and internal sensors, no overrides unless the life signs drop below certain level."

The man sighed again.

"You had the kid chipped?"

"Both of them. Peter's design, in fact. But he wasn't the one to put this in my suit, Rhodey. It was Tony. He added some routine that would discover what Peter works on based on Tony's basic layouts and it ties these things together. And yes, Peter knows about them, before you ask. He is the one who wrote all the needed code for the capsule overrides."

"Does he know about his suit being on this list?"

Peter could easily visualise Pepper's eyeroll.

"How could he not, since he is rebuilding the next one now - and building the new Rescue unit - and he implements the same routines in each of them anew?"

Of course he knew. And he knew how much it annoyed him when Mr Stark used the override. And he knew...

"The overrides in Tony's suits are even stronger, up to and including locking or running some functions independently from Peter's direct orders."

"That's... messed up, seriously," Colonel Rhodes sounded somewhat upset for some reason.

"Well, Iron Man One has override for all the suits Tony made," Pepper seemed, in turn, somewhat indifferent.

A silent breath or two passed.

"And by Iron Man One, which suit do you mean, exactly?"

Low voice. Very low voice.

_Adult male threatening tone._

Before he noticed, he was at the door and taking long steps into the living room.

"That would be any suit being currently worn by Iron Man," he explained. "It works a bit like Air Force One, I suppose. Whichever suit Mr Stark was wearing, automatically became the top of the hierarchy, with Rescue coming as the second one. Also, I'll enable these overrides in my suit, Pepper. Just in case."

"Peter, I don't need you to..."

"You do. And I don't mind. Mr Stark used them a few times and I must admit it was plenty annoying, but what if something happens to me and you have to be there for Morgan? You won't be able to take her everywhere and..."

"Fine, fine," Colonel Rhodes interrupted him harshly. "Which of the suits has the Iron Man One priority right now?"

He seemed rather intent on the topic and Peter kind of wasn't surprised.

"Friday, which units currently have override control on Rescue unit?"

"None of them, Peter."

"There, you have it. Friday says there is no suit with override on Rescue, and since Rescue is the second in the hierarchy - becomes automatically the first, with IM One not present. But Rescue only has limited override and..." he looked up at Pepper. "That's what it's going to have."

"Friday," the colonel said, when Peter paused. "Which of the inactive units had the potential to override Rescue unit?"

A beat.

Until Peter nodded.

"All of the suits in the Iron Man category have this potential, colonel."

"What would be needed to activate that functionality?"

Another pause.

Another nod.

"It would require Mr Stark's presence or a delegated individual of Mr Stark's choosing to activate."

Rhodes raised his eyebrows and looked at Pepper questioningly. She shrugged and nodded at Peter, who smiled.

"Oh, God," the colonel sighed. "One last question then... Who the heck made that highly intelligent decision?"

"Tony," "Mr Stark," "The boss" they spoke at the same time.

The big man moaned.

"But that's only the Iron Man suits," Pepper said reassuringly. "Right now Peter is using his own, which is not in the same cate..." she trailed off, her eyes widening slightly as the sight of Peter's wrists. "Category," she swallowed and coughed. "Sorry. Peter, could you bring me the water? The pollen makes my throat dry out in seconds."

"Sure," he smiled and nodded at Rhodes. "Anything for you, sir?"

"Something that will make me forget what I've just heard," the man groaned. "But in the absence of hard liquor, anything cold will be fine. Thank you, Parker."

"Call me Peter, sir. Parker is what my teachers call me and this is supposed to be a vacation..."

The moment he crossed the doorway, Rhodes turned towards Pepper and started whispering furiously. Peter sighed and tried not to listen, but, as usual, all his senses sharpened immediately. Stress always made his hearing much stronger, after all.

And he froze.

"...formalised!"

"He couldn't. I mean, seriously, Rhodey, what would you have done?"

"I don't know. Not like I am Tony Stark, am I?"

Pepper sighed.

"I know what he... what he..." she swallowed, he could _hear_ it, even from across the building. "I'm not sure if there is a procedure for this."

"Adopting someone? There is a whole department of Child Protective Services for this, Pepper, don't be obtuse."

"But there was no procedure for adopting a non-existent seventeen-year-old...!"

A miniature supernova went off in Peter's brain.

"It would have worked before the Decimation - he was at school and Tony was alive and... and now he is too old for this," he heard Pepper say. "And it wasn't even about that, really. I mean, Tony did write a will that puts Peter as the main beneficiary - well, after Morgan and me, but a big chunk of mine is shared with Peter, for management purposes."

"Dear God, did he mean to sign off everything to that kid...!?"

"Have you never seen them together?" Pepper countered softly. "I wish I had had this kind of relationship with my own parents...! And no, definitely not everything, since the company is _mine_. Peter has a large chunk of shares which mainly wait until he turns twenty-five, as per Tony's directions."

"And I'm not sure I won't be signing the control over to Pepper at the very second I get it," he added. "I am completely serious. Code? Nanites? AI? I can work with that. Finances and arguing with the stakeholders... not that much. And I'm not being coy _or_ cocky," he sniffed and shrugged. "I'm being realistic. And, well, I'm not angling at Pepper's job. Not in this universe or any other. And I will do whatever is needed to make sure she keeps it, too."

"Peter..."

"Enhanced senses then, kid?" the colonel took over the jug of lemonade Peter had carried to the table, leaving Peter with just Pepper's water bottle, which Peter proceeded to toss towards her, making the soldier flinch, just a bit. Pepper fetched it from the air with the tiniest possible smirk.

"Sir, I can hear everything in the radius of... Maybe a mile. More or less. If I'm in fight mode, it's more, expands with stress. I can tell you how many people there are now around the property and that one of your accompanying drivers is playing Candy Crush with his sound on. Also, I am now disturbingly sure that bears do in fact shit in the woods, which is not something I was at any point wishing I could confirm. There are seventeen mice and three lizards living in the basement. Sorry, Pepper. There is a nest of crows nearby, and there are several smaller animals I'm not familiar with, living in the growth around the lake. I know what your people are gossipping about - mostly celebrities, I think."

"Pepper, did you know about this...?"

"Pepper knows, Captain Wilson knows, doctor Banner knows, director Fury knows..." he shrugged.

It seemed that something had come to a stop. The whole visit, it was supposed to be about something, about Rhodey and him and about - somehow - the older man assuming some kind of responsibility for something.

_Fuck me if I'm going to make it easy for him. I may not be Iron Man, but I am his bloody apprentice and if there is one thing I will prove to all of them... is that I'm not going to be an easy target._

He looked up at Pepper, who nodded slightly.

_OK then. Ladies first._

"What exactly do you want from Peter, Rhodey?" she asked bluntly, putting her bottle away. "Because if you want to somehow impose on him - get him to participate in some military stunt or, even worse, provide materials for something..." she leaned forward, "I will boot you out of this house without remorse."

"It's not _exactly_ that," the colonel prevaricated and Peter saw his host roll her eyes at the claim.

_Oh, boy. Here goes my afternoon. I just hope Morgan will be willing to spill some juice on him after dinner._ _It should make him leave._

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely no idea if that makes sense, canon-wise, but I can see Tony putting this kind of hierarchy in the sets he created ;)


End file.
